TMS Update: Final:

Well, after meeting with Dr. Hayden today to formulate a plan, the plan is now to just kill myself.

Antidepressant-wise, I am completely untreatable. The ~new~ DNA test came back and told me exactly what I already knew from the last DNA test. Out of the five antidepressants I metabolize normally, one made things incredibly worse, one did nothing, and the other three I have yet to try however they will make me bleed out and I will probably require blood transfusions.

ECT is not an option. My mother is too busy and Sii is too stupid to take care of any of my business while I undergo the treatments and memory loss.

A hospital in Texas was recommended, where I would stay for SEVERAL MONTHS. That is also not an option.

This leaves ketamine, brain surgery for deep brain stimulation, and suicide.

We are going to try to begin setting up appointments for the ketamine unit at Emory starting tomorrow. Dr. Hayden said some people have gotten in to begin treatments within three weeks. Not bad. I can buy time, I hope. I have no idea how long the trail of red tape is to get in for deep brain stimulation, however. I imagine it's time I don't have.

So... I guess this is the last TMS update, since it is over. I am very much ready to die. Same as every day.

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TMS Update: Week 4:

We've been treating on the right side of my brain for the majority of the week, still no results. We're going to continue on the right side on Monday and Tuesday, then return to the left side doing 5000 pulses at 20Hz. Since there have been no changes, no results, nothing so far, the chance of seeing anything at this point from the treatment has been reduced down to about 30%. I don't want to stop though, some people have gotten all six weeks, go home for a week or two, then have a delayed reaction and it suddenly starts working. Why stop in the middle of a treatment anyway? Yes it costs a lot of money, but so will other options after this.

Last week Dr. Hayden wanted to speak with me about.. other options. I am more than willing to participate in medical trials, and he is happy to refer me to them. If TMS doesn't work, we're going to look at the ketamine treatments going on at Emory (in Atlanta). That may possibly produce a response, the reaction may be similar to LSD. I currently try to take LSD once a year, not so much in a recreational sense, but because it actually puts my depression in remission for MONTHS. It is chemically activating something in my brain that isn't being activated otherwise. So, ketamine might be a good choice. ... I wish I had tried it recreationally so I would know.

If THAT doesn't work and no current studies are going on with LSD, we would opt for the deep brain stimulation implant; brain surgery. I am very used to surgeries, I've had a lot of them, but they're.. not exactly fun, safe, or cheap. A solution has to be found though, something has to be done, or I won't be around. That's just the blunt truth.

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TMS Update: Week 3:

A lot of changes were made this week, to no avail. We went up from 10hz to 20hz, and moved from 3000 pulses to 4000. This should really be overstimulating my brain at this point, but… it’s not. It’s done nothing.

The staff is concerned about my health, mentally and physically. Physically, I am severely fatigued. At one point this week I slept for 22 hours. I’ve slept for longer many times before, but the thing they don’t like is that I’m still exhausted after sleeping for that long. I never feel rested in the first place and always have very low energy, however I am at the point where I.. can’t really do anything. I pulled myself together to go out for a close friend’s birthday last night and I managed to fall, hard, going up a flight of stairs. I accidentally knocked shit off the wall at the restaurant. I was struggling finding words, talking.

The thing is, I have a lot of doctor appointments. I’m used to that. However we typically space them out so I have at least one day of rest, because I cannot handle going out every day. With TMS treatments, I have to go out every weekday, five days a week, nonstop. It doesn’t help that the drive there is 45 minutes, and the drive back is an hour if we’re lucky because we leave right at rush hour. It is destroying me, but I was pushing myself as hard as possible to keep going, I want to see the treatment start to work.

Yesterday, it was decided that it would be healthier if we cut the treatments back to three days a week, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I.. didn’t want to, I want to see this goddamn magnet do something, but they insisted. I was also told to contact a doctor specializing in sleep disorders. None of us think it’s sleep apnea, however there are so many hypersomnia disorders and branches of it… they just want to have the issue looked at since it’s been a problem my entire life. I honestly think it’s just a combination of all my mental problems and sheer stress, but… I’ll go to yet another doctor, and we’ll see.

On the mental side of things, I was given a new questionnaire thing to fill out about suicide, though I’m not sure why. My everyday baseline is, yes, I want to commit suicide. Yes, I think about it every day. Yes, I have plans for it. Yes, I will likely keep trying. This has been my standard everyday baseline since I was around eight years old. It is.. exhausting. However, it hasn’t gotten any worse or better. The only thing that has changed over the past several months is my motivation has completely gone away. I don’t want to paint, I don’t want to cook, I don’t want to play any games, and god forbid I need to clean because it just isn’t happening. At this point, everything can rot and I will rot with it. Luckily, even though he is a fucking stupid piece of shit sometimes, I have a good boyfriend, and he is helping. He’s helping clean, he’s making sure I eat at least once a day, he is..,support, which I don’t have much of. At all.

So, all in all, I guess the best thing to say for week three is… I’m still alive, and I’m still fighting.. as best as I can, anyway.

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TMS Update: Week 2:

So, I’ve had 11 treatments and.. nothing has been going on. Typically you would see something at this point, however if anything mood-wise was happening during the later part of this week, it was masked by the stress of my mom being in the hospital and everything crashing down on me all at once.

On Monday we will be going from 10Hz to 20Hz, essentially doubling the strength of the magnet. When the treatment actually begins working, it will most likely make my depression worse for a short time, or turn me into a crazy irritable bitch, and I’ll probably.. remove myself from the internet for a few days so I don’t run everyone off.

Man, I wish I had something better/cooler to report. Things are just slow goings.

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TMS Update: Week 1:

So, I’ve had a week of TMS treatments and I don’t have any cool magnet-related super powers, really disappointed.

Seriously though, there isn’t much to report. Not much is expected in the first week, though by the end of next week if we’re not seeing anything going on, the treatments will be tweaked/strengthened. I’m mainly just exhausted from having to leave the house every day. It stresses me out very much, then the treatment its self on top of that drains all my energy. That’s why I’ve mostly just been hanging out at night chillin' instead of really making content-filled, effort-filled posts about.. whatever. I’m dead by the time I get home.

I’m just tired.

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Since my photography garners little to no attention, I thought people might be interested in a series of treatments I’m about to go through instead.

Beginning Monday (July 13th) I will be undergoing TMS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans.....ic_stimulation , http://neurostar.com/neurostar-tms-.....ion-treatment/ ) treatments every weekday for a minimum of six weeks. My depression is drug resistant, as we’ve been struggling with medications since I was a child, even medications not even meant for depression.

I feel very lucky to have the chance to undergo these treatments. The doctor I’m working with has a 70% remission rate with depression, as opposed to the stated 30% by the FDA. This is because, instead of following the very low baseline that the FDA tested, my doctor treats “off the books”, following much more recent medical studies that are showing more impressive results.

Really, I can’t put into words how excited I am to try this. I fight tooth and nail against committing suicide every second of every day, but I made a promise to another one of my doctors that if I began going through the motions to attempt suicide again, I would either call him or send myself to the hospital for a couple days. I keep my promises, I want to see how this treatment works out. There’s no guarantee that it will work, or get rid of my depression completely, but it is a chance.

I would like to invite people to ask me about the sessions as I go through them, or if enough people are interested, I could make weekly or bi-weekly updates about the experience. I honestly don’t expect much feedback because I’m practically invisible, online and off, but this is a rather uncommon treatment and I would like for more people to have the opportunity to learn about it.

I still have a lot of other medical problems going on along side my depression, but that's a lot of boring crap no one really wants to hear about. I did want to mention it though because I am often out of the house/away from the internet all day, every day, because of doctors appointments. If someone DOES ask me a question about TMS treatments, I'll try my best to respond soon, but it might take several days, especially with my anxiety and other issues playing into that.

Other than answering questions, I will still probably withdraw myself from the internet for the most part. A lot of things online are stressing me out and making my overall mood much worse.

Thanks for being here, guys, and thanks for putting up with me.

EDIT: TMS treatments have been pushed back to Friday (7/17) due to unrelated medical issues.

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UPDATE: I got my first treatment today! The physical experience certainly.. isn't something that is easy to describe. There were no seizures though, and it went very smoothly! Starting this Monday I will be going in every weekday, for six weeks. This is going to DRAIN me, I likely won't be uploading much through the whole thing just because I will be so worn out, but I will try to keep everyone updated and answer any questions people have about the treatment! I still feel really honored that I'm able to undergo something like this, and I definitely want to share the knowledge I gain from it. But yeah! Here's to.. the first step in hopefully a life-changing, positive direction.